Exploring the synergy between Neil Barrett's collections for women and for men, Fall/Winter 2013 translates a menswear wardrobe into a womenswear idiom. New Minimalism is of utm
ost importance, paring down garments to their purest elements to express a Modernist ethos. Garments are precisely tailored, their fabrics, cut and construction forming the only decoration in a minimal interpretation of Bauhaus.
Key pieces from Barrett's Fall/Winter modernist menswear collection - graphic sweatshirts, quilted bombers and overcoats with internally belted volume - are reappropriated for women. The visual effects are the same, but garments are re-imagined and re-proportioned for the female figure.
Voluminous overcoats are sliced precisely at the waist and padded leather jackets cropped high on the torso. The torso is rounded at the sleeve, emphasised by the structure of bonded textiles, and the swell of a dropped shoulder-seam above slender trousers or layered, short skirts.
Texture is a focus throughout, combining the ponyskin and leather with wools in pressed astrakhan or casentino finishes as well as traditional suiting, juxtaposed in Modernist collages of texture inspired by the Bauhaus. A jacquard wool is specially woven to mimic the Bauhaus obsession with strict diagonal and curved geometry, cut into slim suiting.
The graphic qualities of fabric textures are explored through razored fur, leather quilted into chevrons, and pleats - sometimes irregular, to animate the surface of a short skirt, or in georgette plisse to add movement to a strict silhouette.
Colour echoes both the strict lines and the richness of fabric textures: tobacco combined with black and white, a palette of greys and a combination of blues with black from darkest navy to pure primary. Garments in tones of one colour focus attention on the interplay of fabrics.
Shoes and accessories follow the collection's theme of clean line versus textual intricacy, collaging astrakhan wool, ponyskin, leather and python in geometric patterns that concentrate on an interplay of surface detail.
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